The importance of rehearsal when coaching 🎭🎬👩🎤
Three examples that stopped me being a rehersal sceptic
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What I used to think…
Over the last 12 months, I have worked hard to improve my skills as a coach. And I needed to, because I used to be rubbish. I would wander into a classroom with no real purpose, watch teachers teach thinking “well, I wouldn’t have done that”, and give vague feedback along the lines of “I think you need to work on your differentiation”.
Inspired by the likes of Josh Goodridge, Adam Boxer, and Ollie Lovell, I now adopt a more purposeful approach both to lesson observations and the subsequent coaching conversation. I use the Hypothesis Model. You can read an overview of my process here, and some concrete examples of the Hypothesis Model in action here.
But there is one element of the coaching process that I have never been fully on board with - the idea of rehearsal. The thing is, I know it is important for teachers to have an opportunity to rehearse the idea we have just discussed and planned during the coaching conversation. But it has always felt weird to me, and hence, I made it feel weird to my coaches. I either skipped over rehearsal or did it in a rush and half-heartedly so we could both move on and pretend it never happened as quickly as possible. As a result, when rehearsal did happen in my coaching sessions, it was not at all effective.
If you have coached or been coached, what has been your experience of rehearsal during the coaching conversation?
A day of coaching
I have slowly been coming on board with the idea of rehearsal over the last few months, but it is now a nailed-on part of my coaching regime thanks to some experiences I had training a group of coaches recently.
This was a two-day event involving four teachers being coached and four teachers looking to improve their coaching. On Day 1, the coaching team watched four lessons, and then I led each of the coaching sessions with the team watching. And then on Day 2, each of the coaches took the lead for one of the conversations, and the rest of us fed back afterwards. I ran a similar day with primary colleagues that you can read about here.
During three of the coaching conversations, the importance of rehearsal really came to the fore.
Example 1: Actually, I wouldn’t do that
In one coaching session, we worked on Book-to-Board as a means of giving the teacher a sense of whole class understanding, as opposed to hearing from one or two students.
Having discussed the technique and found an opportunity to use it the very next lesson, we moved to the rehearsal phase. The teacher asked me and the other coaches a question, we worked out the answer on our sheets (as the students would be doing), and then transferred our final answer to our mini-whiteboards. One of the coaches had deliberately made an error to give the teacher an opportunity to practice how he would respond to this scenario.
This caught the teacher off guard. He immediately congratulated those of us who had the correct answer, and then began to question the student who was wrong. After a few seconds, he stopped and said: Actually, I wouldn’t do that.
He then asked us to go back to holding our boards, and this time borrowed two of the boards, held them up, and said: One of these is right, the other is wrong. I want you to turn to your partner and tell them what you think and why.
Example 2: Sorry, yes I see now…
In another coaching session, we worked on Call and Respond as a means of checking students were listening to the introduction of a new piece of vocabulary. The word was commutative.
We discussed how the teacher could:
Break down the word into its syllables: com-mu-ta-tive, saying them first then getting students to repeat in unison.
Put the syllables together and repeat the word again
Introduce the definition: The order we multiply does not matter because multiplication is commutative
Frame the definition by saying the first part and getting all students to respond with the final word: The order we multiply does not matter because multiplication is…
Reframe the definition: Commutative means the order we multiply…
The teacher was well up for this, and promptly stood up to rehearse as the group of coaches acted as students. But then something weird happened. Instead of asking us all to respond, he proceeded to Cold Call us individually, asking us to repeat syllables and end sentences.
At the end of this, I thanked him for his enthusiasm and clear delivery, and then said that I would give it a go so I could model what I actually meant. Immediately he said: Sorry, I see it now, and was able to do the action again but this time involving all of us.
Example 3: Of course, the jump is too big!
In this coaching session, we worked on the use of What If to further check and develop students’ understanding by changing a single element of a question at a time. I wrote about using What If? when going through answers to tests here.
The teacher really liked the idea, so we jumped into rehearsal. The teacher developed a series of questions on the board for an upcoming lesson on expanding brackets. The sequence of questions was as follows:
3(x + 2)
What if the 2 became a 5?… 3(x + 5)
What if the + became a -?… 3(x - 5)
What we did this… 3(2x + 4)?
What if the 3 became a 3x?… 3x(2x + 4)?
We played along, answering the questions on our mini-whiteboard, and the teacher’s responses were excellent.
At the end, I asked her to reflect on her sequence of questions. Immediately she spotted it. The jump between the 3rd and 4th examples was too big. Too many things are changing. Sure, her students may have coped with this, but in these early examples, it is important to limit the changes where possible so students can attend to what has changed and the impact it has on the answer. Plenty of time for multiple changes later on.
Reflections
The key point from each of these examples is that there is a gulf between thinking about a teaching move and enacting one. This may come down to the Curse of Knowledge. As coaches, we are likely to be familiar with the technique we are introducing and thus fail to appreciate the complexities and nuances that may get missed.
You don’t want the first time you try to put something new into practice to be in front of 30 expectant pairs of eyes with a million other things vying for your attention. Of course, rehearsing in front of a small group of adults can no way replicate the reality of the classroom. However, rehearsal can help bridge the gap between theory and practice, helping the teacher do more than simply visualise the actions they will take.
But few teachers want to rehearse. And that is for two reasons. The first is that it can feel weird and awkward. But second, it is tempting to think you don’t need to rehearse. Indeed, I reckon had I asked the three teachers in the examples above whether rehearsal was needed, they would have said no. They understood the technique and were ready to put it into action. And yet, we saw that was not quite the case.
So, for those of us lucky to coach, we need to create safe, positive, low-stakes conditions whereby teachers feel comfortable rehearsing, explaining why this is such an important step in the process. I think having more than one person in the room helps this, something that Tom Sherrington discussed on my podcast recently with the idea of group coaching. And for those of us lucky enough to be coached, we need to embrace the rehearsal phase as much as possible, seeing it as a necessary step to successful classroom enactment.
What has been your experience with rehearsal?
What do you agree with, and what have I missed?
Let me know in the comments below!
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Thanks so much for reading and have a great week!
Craig